Tablet for a 3 1/2 year old

I want to get my son a tablet.† He loves my itouch.† My firends son has an ipad and can doso many thing with it.† My husband says if we get him one now that we are spoiling him and we need to wait for his birthday at the end of September!†† What are your thoughts on this?† Would it be spoiling him?† Should we wait?† DO you have an argument I can give my husband so I can get him one?† :)† Thanks!

Comments (149)

I have an itouch, an Android phone and a Nook that my boys have access to all the time. I load learning apps and other games on them for them to use. For more 'fun' they each have a Nintendo DS (well, used to be ours, but they took them over). They also both have access to my desktop computer.

You may want to weigh the cost vs. the amount of time you will allow your child to spend using it (so they don't get too much screen time and start to expect it).¬† It varies for every family, but for us, we only do 30 minutes of any sort of computer game or leapster (educational only) because I want to make sure the kids don't get too used to sitting in front of a game when they should be using imaginitive play and getting moving.

Again, it's a personal decision but that's how I approach it. For me that's too much money for the time we permit, but if you'll use it all the time and¬†the cost/screen time¬†doesn't bother you, then why not?

For the spoiling issue-- I seriously do not get the comparison between children and adults. We are parents, our job is to mold our children to be well adjusted indiduals. IMO, buying expensive unneccesary high tech gadgets could potentially teach your child to expect high ticket items, ie "spoiling." It has nothing to do with what we buy ourselves.¬† And no, I don't buy myself high ticket items. All the expensive purses are ugly anyway.

¬†

--

Army wife and mom to my heart, K est. 5/2007 and my soul A, est. 5/2009 Due with girl#3 2/2012

Just to respond to the comment made that they are not teaching long division in school, that simply is not true for most schools. I would say ALL schools teach it, but I can't speak for the schools that don't know better. It's like kids come home and say that they did nothing in school that day, come on now.

^^^all schools don't teach the basics like long division - I can guarantee that. The one school my cousins attended let them "choose" if they wanted to learn cursive and had their spelling is horrendous. Its about that they just didn't pay attention.

Our nine month old has many apps on the family iPad. He doesn't have his own and probably won't until he understands the importance of taking care of things. So the only time he had access to it is if husband or I are sitting with him. If you have the money to lose, get him one for his birthday. If the cost of the item would mean an adjust in your budget for a while, I wouldn't get him one.

--

-Andrea G.

Mother of Karsten born August 16, 2010 and Samantha born November 19, 2011.

Kateygirl, thats a horrible school. ¬† There are basic skills that I would like any child to have but they do get eroded by the generations. ¬†When I was in school they never taught us to use a slide rule however we did use logarithmic tables which children don't seem to use as much now.